Melancholy of Haruhi-chan #17 and 18 and Nyoron Churuya-san #9

Nyoron Churuya-san #9

It’s sports festival day and well… you can pretty much guess how sports is going to work out for a 2 foot tall chibi girl with no opposable thumbs. Not well.

I think the best part was the 3-legged race, I knew what was going to happen, but I loved how they animated the sequence where Churuya is stumbling and fumbling for dear life. Otherwise, Churuya was pretty cute running under hurdles, pulling for smoked cheese, amongst other things. It was one of the better Churuya-san ONAs, although unfortunately no ACHAKURA.

Haruhi-Chan #17 and 18

Man, what was up with the opening scene with Churuya and Mikuru-chan? That was just totally random.

No ASAHAKURA this week in either of the Haruhi ONAs, but that’s alright. She’s had plenty of screen time lately.

Haruhi-chan 17 and 18 were connected this week. In Haruhi-chan 17, Haruhi’s admiration of sakura leaves leads to a chain of thoughts that ends up with Haruhi and the gang watching the splendor of the sakura trees, while Kyon’s digging a hole to bury God knows what. Meanwhile, Churuya-san seems to be powering up for some sort of showdown – perhaps the one hinted at back in ONA #12 versus Mori-san? But in the meanwhile, she has just the right place for Haruhi to go for the Sakura-viewing/hole digging.

Meanwhile, in Haruhi-chan 18, we see the actual hole digging. Luckily for Kyon, Itsuki’s got a plan that involves Mori-san playing the role of a meteor and leaving a nice crater in the ground for Kyon to claim credit for.

Need MOAR non-chibi Mori-san. Maybe it’s the red jumpsuit talking, but I never realized she looked so stunning.

As usual, the ONAs were cute and pretty amusing. I laughed at Kyon taking the credit at the end, and I liked that Koizumi showed up in sparkles in both episodes. LOL at his state of undress at the end of #18. A nod towards Hosaka perhaps? (Daisuke Ono voices both characters.)

Interestingly, they showed the characters in non-Chibi form quite a bit during these two ONAs. Maybe they’re trying to get into the swing of things for the eventual non-chibi Haruhi 2? Hmm… Nah.

Another thing I found interesting is, they’ve hinted at Churuya’s… “privileged” background moreso during these ONAs than they did during the real Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, although I wouldn’t exactly consider these episodes canonical.